The Form ADV is used by investment advisers to register with one or more state securities regulators or the SEC. Form ADV consists of two main parts: Form ADV Part 1 and Form ADV Part II. Form ADV Part 1, itself divided into two subparts (1A and 1B), contains information relating to the investment adviser’s business practices and disciplinary history. Part 1 is completed online and filed electronically through the Investment Adviser Registration Depository (“IARD”) system.

Form ADV Part II, or a brochure substantially equivalent to Form ADV Part II, is a disclosure document that, under state and federal securities law, is required to be given to clients. Form ADV Part II, on pages 1 through 6, asks a number of questions relating to the investment adviser’s services, fees, and business practices. The adviser is required to supplement its responses to those questions with narrative disclosures on Schedule F to Form ADV Part II. All state-registered advisers are required to file Schedule F with their Form ADV Part II.

Form ADV Part II consists of two additional schedules, Schedules G and H. Schedule G contains instructions relating to the manner in which an audited balance sheet should be prepared. If you are required to file an audited balance sheet with a state regulator, you should ask that state regulator whether your balance sheet should be audited in accordance with the instructions to Schedule G. Under most, if not all, state laws, an adviser that sponsors a wrap fee program is required to complete and file a Schedule H. The Schedule H must be accompanied by the adviser’s wrap fee brochure. To determine whether you are required to complete and file a Schedule H and wrap fee brochure, you should review the instructions to Schedule H and check with the state(s) in which you are registered, or applying for registration.

Effective April 23, 2007, Form ADV Part II is capable of being filed electronically through the IARD system; however, unlike Form ADV Part I, it must be completed offline and uploaded to the IARD system. The form must be submitted in a text searchable .pdf format in order to be accepted by the IARD system.

To facilitate the process of completing the Form ADV Part II, NASAA has created an editable PDF version of Form ADV Part II. The PDF form can be completed, edited, and saved using the free Adobe Reader available on the Adobe website by clicking here. The adviser can then upload this PDF version of its Form ADV Part II onto the IARD system and electronically submit the form to the states in which the adviser is registered or applying for registration.

Filing Options
Filers have the option of using the electronic versions of the blank forms provided by NASAA on this website or creating a PDF version of any of their existing electronic documents. Macintosh users can create PDF documents by selecting the PDF option in the Print dialog box. There are a number of programs available to help Windows users create PDF documents. Following is a listing of some of the more popular programs for creating these documents. The cost of each varies and some are even free, but they all have the ability to create the appropriate PDF document for filing of the Form ADV Part II.

For further information about the actual registration process, please refer to the www.iard.com.

Because all state-registered advisers are required to file Schedule F as part of their filing with state securities regulators, but not all advisers are required to file Schedules G and H, NASAA has created separate Schedule G and Schedule H PDF documents.

Schedule F
The first PDF document is the Form ADV Part II with Schedule F. This document contains pages 1 through 6 of Form ADV Part II (the question section) and Schedule F, the narrative section. NASAA has created 3 versions of Form ADV Part II with Schedule F; the only difference between the 3 versions being the number of Schedule F pages available for entering text. The adviser has the option of selecting a Schedule F that is 5 pages in length, 15 pages in length, or 25 pages in length. Prior to entering data into a particular version, the adviser should determine the approximate length of its Schedule F text and select the version that results in the least amount of blank pages; any blank pages will display on the IAPD system that is viewable by the public. Additionally, if your Schedule F text exceeds the maximum number of pages available for a particular version of Schedule F, you should use the next highest version that allows you to enter all of your Schedule F while minimizing the number of blank pages.

In completing any version of Form ADV Part II with Schedule F, in addition to having the ability to fill in the check boxes on pages 1 through 6 of Form ADV Part II, you have the ability to enter text into two areas, Item 11 of Form ADV Part II and Schedule F. In completing Item 11 or Schedule F, you have the option of either typing text directly into those areas or cutting and pasting your text from a word processing document such as Word. You should note, however, that the ability to enter data into the Item 11 text boxes is limited by the size of the text boxes. If you need to enter data that exceeds the size of the text boxes, you may consider referring clients to Schedule F and entering the disclosure on Schedule F.

Schedule G
The second PDF document is Schedule G of Form ADV. As indicated above, Schedule G is for instructional purposes only, cannot be edited, and should not be submitted as a filing.

Schedule H
The third PDF document is Schedule H of Form ADV. This document contains the Schedule H instructions for preparing your wrap fee brochure and 15 blank pages for entering the text of your wrap fee brochure. As with Schedule F, you can type text directly into Schedule H or cut and paste text from a word processing document.

Note: The spell check functionality of Adobe has been enabled for any area in which data can be entered; Item 11 of Form ADV Part II, and Schedules F and H. The program automatically checks for spelling errors and highlights what the program believes to be misspelled words. The program hopefully will assist you in completing and submitting a Form ADV Part II that is free of spelling errors. However, as with any spell check functionality, the program may highlight some words that are not necessarily misspelled words but words that aren’t recognized by the program.